Researchers Estimate Undiagnosed COVID Cases Doubled Confirmed Case Count

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Researchers estimated 16 million people in the United States may have had undiagnosed, asymptomatic COVID-19 as of September 2020 and this was double the 7.5 million confirmed cases.

Testing has increased. However, the tests are trying to detect active cases of COVID. The ratio of undiagnosed cases to confirmed would gradually reduce. There are now 30 million confirmed cases in the USA. The upper bound of undiagnosed cases would likely be another 60 million. This would mean up to 27% of Americans have confirmed or could have had COVID.

The percentage who have had COVID is not 9% (30 million) but likely 20-27% (65 -90 million).

SOURCES – JAMA Network
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

23 thoughts on “Researchers Estimate Undiagnosed COVID Cases Doubled Confirmed Case Count”

  1. Like "the flu"? You mean like the Spanish flu of 1918 which may have killed 100 million people? You should choose your obfuscations more clearly

  3. So far, it seems that most people vaccinated have as much resistance as a survivor in terms of getting (re)infected with a later variant. But as in all things biological, it isn't a perfect defense against variants, but you are more likely to have reduced symptoms if you do happen to get hit with a variant.

  4. Great find, the big question is what happens to a vaccinated person. Will they croak? (subtle frog joke here)

  5. I guarantee you they will eventually realize that the number of undiagnosed is probably more like 500% of the confirmed cases.

  6. It would be sad if this weren't aggravatingly foolish. Conventional seroprevalence studies for Covid-19 through antibody testing are merely a snapshot in time, only good for a few months of positives. Detectable antibody levels to give a positive result fade after months, so using them after the initial months of the outbreak cannot be used to figure out total infections afterward. Inferring total infections from seroprevalence studies was proven useless when at the end of last summer such data showed the UK had less total infections than it did at the beginning of summer. 3 months later and less of the total population has been infected? Impossible of course, which is part of the reason such studies have been rare since the summer. They're a look back of the prior 3-4 months, but that's about it.

  7. The CDC said at Thanksgiving there had been about 100 million infections in the US, 7.8x the confirmed infections. They revised that to slightly over 6x. Through higher testing that ratio is likely under 6 by now. The IFR last spring was 0.6-0.7% but had been brought down 70% by July(?). Even if we pessimistically assume it has remained static since, with most infections after July we're left with an average IFR of 0.3% since the outbreak. Through either model we're left with 170-200 million infections, or 51-60% of the population. With such high prevalence there's a lot of overlap of people already infected also getting vaccinated, thus we cant just add the figures together. And immunity through vaccination takes 2-3 weeks to take full effect, so tens of millions vaccinated are still on their way toward immunity right now.

    In another 2-3 weeks there should be 60-70% immunity in the US. That's not enough for herd immunity. Maybe in rural areas, not cities. With the transmission rate higher than it was last year we probably need 80-90% of the population immune, especially in dense cities. With the overlap of most previously infected unknowingly being double immune, we likely need at least 60 million MORE people to be fully vaccinated. Health officials want zero covid instead of endemic, so their advice is based on such.

  8. Diabetes makes the blood more likely to clot. Covid 19 also does that. When the blood thickens the lungs cannot deliver oxygen to the body and the patient dies. There are other conditions that cause clotting. Some know and SOME UNKNOWN. Medical science still doesn't't fully understand how the blood clots. Recently a genetic defect Factor%Leiden was discovered given the test for it only became available 10 years ago most people with it don't know they have it. Additionally some drugs and food can increase clotting. Vitamin D deficiency may also reduce covid 19 clotting. Overall we don't know enough to determinereally have no way of nowing who will recover or die from covid 19 and who will die.

  9. Heard on the radio this morning of an Australian researcher who was doing work on badly affected covid cases – they seemed to be suffering more from diabetes than those less affected. He had nobody handy to calibrate his testing regime on, so he did it on himself. Found that 1/ he'd been infected with covid without even noticing and 2/ he had high numbers for diabetes, which he previously had not. (About minutes 5 – 7.30 on this podcast )- https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018788324/virologist-dr-chris-smith-covid-science

  11. Annually there are usually between 30,000 to 45,000 deaths attributed to the flu. We had 500,000 covid deaths over the last year. Trump was clueless.

  12. In fact, a lot depends on the test itself. I still remember Elon Musk's tweet that he did several tests in a row and all showed different results. Is this the right thing to do? So I try to use only proven laboratories like https://www.discountedlabs.com/

  14. If the number of infections were that high we would have already reach "herd immunity". Mortality rate is higher. most likely 0.01 at the start, probably 0.004 now due to better treatment. I would average it at 0.007 and get about 80 million infected, 23% of the population.

  15. I think you can calculated the number of total COVID infections from the number of COVID deaths. I think the factor is between 100 to 200 infections per death. So the number of COVID infections is between 53 million to 106 million, between 16% to 32% of the population. We should reach herd immunity in 3 to 5 months. We will never reach zero infection, most likely it will bottom out at a few thousand daily. We will just have to learn to live with it.

  16. The article does not account for seasonality, Republican tendencies, and studiously avoids any actual numbers, presenting only "Percentage change", a derivative number.
    Raw death rates should be required, and ideally age specific data.

  17. There are now reports out of france in the brittany region that COVID-19 infected people have a variant that is not detected by all current PCR tests. They call the variant “le variant breton“ , and this may be a sign of things to come. While the variant doesn't seem to be additionally lethal or transmissible currently, all the patients are dead.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2021/03/17/latest-covid-19-variant-discovered-in-france-isnt-detected-by-standard-pcr-tests/?sh=3749c5ab7e18

  18. Yup definite issues with masking. However the science improved to show they made a huge difference.

  19. Flashback…

    “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask,’ infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci told 60 Minutes. While masks may block some droplets, Fauci said, they do not provide the level of protection people think they do. Wearing a mask may also have unintended consequences: People who wear masks tend to touch their face more often to adjust them, which can spread germs from their hands.”

    —“Preventing coronavirus: Should you wear a face mask?”, CBS News, March 8, 2020.

  21. If you take the number of deaths and divide by the mortality rate you get a ball park number of cases. 543K deaths divided by the mortality rate of 0.003 (twice some estimates) and you get 180 million cases. If the mortality rate is 0.002 then you get 240 million cases in the USA.

    That's math.

  22. If there are this many asymptomatic cases, then the mortality rate for CV19 is nearing that of a relatively lethal strain of influenza. Trump was right, it's like the flu!

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